Tag Archives: Cricket

I hope you have watched the Pak vs India match. I did too. I cheered and celebrated lifelines, wickets, and boundaries. A day has passed since the victory.

The euphoria of win must have not left when Pakistan has opened eyes in the morning. The victory over the arch-rival, victory which many of us wanted but some part of us was not expecting, should have left you exuberant, full of energy, hopeful.

Was there not a hint of disbelief that today day is just another day? How it could be? it ought to be Eid or National Day or even better an unexpected holiday because some big-wig passed away. There should have been an extra kick in your walk.

I have woke on many such mornings, sometimes morning after a victory or day after an exhilarating display of talent; Ah! when Pakistan won the World Cup, that win in the Hockey Champions Trophy, Saqlain’s momentous effort with Wasim, Shoaib bringing South Africa to knees in a single over, Jahangir Khan defeating Jahansher, Junoon….

But you should ask a question why? To be fair, it’s not the biggest win, just 4 matches? it cannot change future of the nation, cannot remove corrupt, not produce enough energy, cure cancer, … reduce a long list of disappointments, but it’s a win leaving you with unexplained joyous feeling. You must be feeling that wave of invincibility, that anything is in grasp, good can happen, we can win, we can crush and we can achieve.

Let not that belief of invincibility pass you. If you let it pass, it will be a just memory. The memory where 11 players did something wonderful and rest of us just joined into celebrations. Or you can ride the wave of this belief, bravado, and confidence. As they say, monetize it.

I want us to

Hold on to the moment of confidence when Shadab asked for a review, that confidence, that air of faith in one’s actions. How many moments you will have that confidence when you are typing your results or being questioned about your experiments? or about your views, political or scientific?

Hold on to the effort Fakhar put in when he was given lifeline, let it your effort when you have floated around your semesters without failing in last few years due to luck. Let it be replaced by hard work, full of concentration, day after day, ball after ball, quiz after quiz, experiment after experiment, mockery after mockery, …

Hold on to Aamir’s effort to put himself back in the arena after being caught in a match-fixing, humiliating his nation and perhaps himself too. His talent might be God given, but his effort is not, he was not born with the daily practice he puts in. You should ask the question, how many hours you have spent on your manuscript? or sweat in library solving those equations. Understand the frustration Sarfaraz must have felt every time he has to tell his colleagues, please play with some responsibility; and still have not lost his nerve.

And hold on to Hardik Pandya’s effort for the lost cause, … not all the efforts get you victories, but they are important. (remember Wahab Riaz’s bowling in last world cup, it will be unfortunate that he might be remembered for that, but that bowling left everyone mesmerized)

Hold on to all or one of them and make it yours … otherwise, few years down the road these will be just “what were you doing when…” memories.

4 moments where being Pakistani was either made one proud or made one really hurt; atleast to me. One can come up with millions of such lists and hundreds of ordering. So I laid down some rules, it has to be in my lifetime, that is I witnessed it happening, so pretty much past 30 years. Other than that there is no logic to it, no grand philosophical ordering, and anyone of you can come up with a better list.

For me the difficulty about making such list is that I realize I have done nothing for my country or humanity in general. In any of these moments I was not the part that was making this moment interesting. I was not the one that helped Pakistan win any of the World Cups, I was not the one marching towards court to get Cheif Justice reinstated, I was not the one collecting funds for the Flood Victims. I was there but more of silent observer and passive member.

But then I was not part of people chanting slogans in favor of Army when Musharaf threw-out lawful Prime Minister or was among ones showering flowers on the killer of Salman Taseer……. I was not part of ugly history also.

I was not there in any of them, I was not making any history, I was just silent as the majority is, but who needs such majority if they can’t speak. .

Only one moment I was part of it was Earthquake 2005, I will start from there.

1) Earthquake 2005

It’s difficult to categorize this as best or worst moment of Pakistan, Northern Areas and Kashmir were literally converted into rubles; houses, schools, hospitals, everything was effected. For that moment it felt worst of being Pakistani, because so many people died and it became visible govt. cannot do it’s job.

Suddenly that became best of Pakistan; no one knows how and when, people just started organizing. Were scenes of rubles of Margala Towers and the people trapped in them, that gave the people an initial push or was it news of children dying in schools in Kashmir, I can’t say. It was just sudden….. and it was in grand order. It was huge effort to reach out to the people who needed help. People gathered food, clothes, blankets, tents…. anything they felt that could be used. Then they rented the trucks instead of handing out them to the govt. they took them to the effected areas themselves. It was extraordinary response to the extraordinary challenge. If in the night you were on the road to Kashmir you can see lines of trucks moving from bottom to the top of the hill.

One day in Bagh area I saw truck load of water-bottles lying on the ground and cardboard boxes peeling off because they have been soaked due to rain. I was amazed to see this amount of water bottles, later I learned that during the early days one of Tv channels ran the story about natural sources of water have been disturbed due to earthquake and in some areas of Kashmir have no water.

I heard one of the guy from Karachi saying that in his area in Karachi people don’t have clean water to drink and here people are doing Wazu with the bottled water. Point is someone heard the story and thought that’s how he can help, he was able to find the resource, he was able to find a person to deliver it…….

We heard hundreds of stories, story of cart-pusher who was coming everyday to help find survivors from the Margala Building instead of selling the things and earn daily living. There were countless of examples where people giving away their savings. putting their lives at risk sometime. …..

That was best of Pakistan, …………

2) World cup……… leading to Shaukat Khanum Hospital

I was quite young at that time and did not knew much about the cricket, except that Pakistani team was being lead by this thin, tall guy called Imran Khan. (I think I had some memories of Sharjah Cup but nothing much) Then came the World Cup being played in Australia, with the theme song “Who’ll rule the World?” and …. things changed, I remember sitting in school van counting who will loose to whom for us to reach the semi-finals; even when I was not clear about the names of different deliveries.

(Good thing about being Pakistani cricket fan is that they don’t change much, even today they are dependent upon how others will loose rather how we will win. So memory keeps getting refreshed. )

Images of Rameez Raja taking the final catch, Waseem Akram taking two wickets in consecutive balls or Imran Khan with raised arms in joy having a victorious smile; have been plastered in my memory.

Why it is important? if we look at it just as a cricket-moment, it does not look much important in terms of history. We won in the Hockey World Cup, we won Snooker world cup and we were champions in Squash (we ruled squash world for 11 years, we ruled hockey more than that.) then why winning Cricket-World Cup was important?

Because it allowed Imran Khan to build Shaukat Khanum…. it made him legend, a giant, a wizard that can do anything. And we all rallied around him and got something important than a crystal cup… Shaukat Khanum Hospital.

Shaukat Khanum Hospital construction is one of the moments which we should all be proud of. Imran Khan might have played pivotal role but we helped him do it. After so many years it is still as success story. I hope it keeps being one. But it would have been difficult to do without the win in World Cup.

England has won the first Cricket World Cup, who cares it is in 20-20 cricket. It is cricket isn’t it. And they have won comprehensively. Never letting Australia dominate. Or atleast not completely, last few overs in both innings felt Australia will squeeze this out also, but England kept their pressure.

Good Luck to England and good luck to Cricket.

This tournament has been exciting, I hope the 50 Over World Cup is also such exciting.

I switched to cricinfo just to check how badly Pakistan lose (did Australia took 20 overs or 30 overs to finish) before I go to sleep and I was what 5 down? really ?

Match was ON!

Shoaib Malik took the wicket.

They were throwing and fielding sharply. Lots of energy was visible on the field. Afridi was looking as excited captain.

Then Rana Naveed took the wicket.

Wao! Pakistan is on the way of their first Win after so long.

But then they showed Afridi having ball in his mouth? and my hurt sunk.

At that moment I knew no matter Pakistan wins or lose, this match is tainted. It will not be remembered for how close this match was, but what was Pakistan’s captain doing.

As usual allegations started hurling in the chat rooms. Old Mud was prodded. Someone threw in that Waqar’s reverse swing was just due to bottle caps, someone came with that all the times India was defeated because Pakistani’s were ball tempering. All the effort that has gone in the issue where many players worked very hard in defending Pakistan

And he is standing on the field doing this?

The most amazing was the explanation, although he apologized but said well everyone does that.

Frankly I don’t want to see him as Captain, not atleast for sometime. He had 2 match suspension previously also for trying to temper the Pitch.

People with these attitudes should not be our Captain, they will have worse effect on the players playing under them

See Rana Naveed, he is looking what is Afridi doing and did not told him not to do that?

Why the hell Rana, let him do that?

Either he was accomplice or did not wanted to say something to his captain.

If later is the case then, this is perfect reason not to make Afridi Captain for some time. PCB should show some spine and make this issue important. It will be interesting to see all those people whose (including mine) egos are hurt when someone hurls some allegations on the Pakistani players.

It will be interesting to see, how they react. Where 2 Day ban is legal, he should be punished more not by banning but by not making captain for some time.

Talat rightly put Pernam-Mukharjee’s remarks discourteous. I will say they are less descourteous more reveiling of negative intent. Unfortunately it is we who are being targeted and Mukharjee’s message has been it is you who are responsible for them. And it is not only him, it has been overall response from India, IBN-CNN was interviewing one of their minister and he was saying that it is indirect acceptance of guilt by Pakistan.If you visit different blogs the messages left by Indians were more like this was due to happen because Pakistan didnot responded to it’s obligation in Mumbai Attacks.They kept on using this event as pressure tactic. 5 Police officers have died in this event and our neighbor was not able to come up with any sympthetic refrence to the Pakistani people. Infact messages appear to be connecting these events to the religion.

Pakistan’s behavior was quite different when Mumbai attacks happened, people were sympathetic even when the India’s language was offensive. We felt that innocent people have died. I have many Indian friends and I shared my sorrow on the Mumbai attacks with them. And this time one of my Indian friend actualy sent me link informing me what is going around. I am thankful for them, I wished their government was also such friendly.

I thing Paksitan should respond in some strict manner, not point finger but be vigilent.

Another bad news,
There has been firing on the Srilankan Cricket team. Some of their players have been injured and 7 police officers have died. According to Governor Punjab these people were appearing to be highly trained. And hinted their link with Mumbai Attack. Qasim Zia was more restraint in pointing out the fingers.
Question is what problem anyone has with Srilankan team?Taliban should not have any problem to them. They are not involved in any combat except against Tamils. So it will be difficult to through put blame in them. What is clear is that this will effect the Pakistan in long way.

Indian media has already gone on offensive. IBN CNN was asking the Sanath Jaysuria that do they regret going to Pakistan. Jaysuria gave a reply that they never had any trouble in Pakistan and that’s why they went to Pakistan. Right now when it is not clear what is condition of the injured players and IBN-CNN anchor was asking him if anyone international team will be willing to go to Pakistan after this. He calmly replied it is too soon for that and they are not more concerned for their players. {above is not exact quotes but paraphrased ones.}

Before that one of their reporter was remarking that the Cricket World Cup’s current system (in which some of the matches would have been played in Pakistan) will be in question. Then their former foreign affairs officer came on air and said that this in the indication of the Pakistan going down. Where the question is not even solved whether these are Taliban or not? On question how can he link to what is going around in Swat, he said that this conclusion (regarding Taliban link) is inevitable. He continued to score diplomatic points by criticising policy of negotiation by Pakistan and Obama.

I really wish Indian Media will keep it’s fire throwing capabilities on restraint and Pakistan Media will be mature than their Indian counter parts. Hameed Gul has said on Tv that Indian Agencies might be behind this attack. I can assure you many people will believe it and many on Media will be forced to take this stance not because they dont have suspecion of it but because public pressure will be on them. It will be difficult to defend that why we should not point finger to India when they easily go on thrashing us without even single evidence.

Our media showed great restraint while Indian Tv Channels where presenting their views in horsed voices and demanding our foreign minister to let India do hot persuit. They should show more restraint now. But this does not mean that they should keep their mum when evidence will point finger. Because it appears most of time our government is naive enough to not to go for the diplomatic offfencive when they have clear ground, they try to achieve their local goals and meet local agendas.

We should not forget the Police Loss, they have lost their 6 members. The question is not only who attacked question also should be what was lapse in security.